The Midnight Walkers is a first-person PvPvE extraction shooter where you fight zombies and other players inside the Liberty Grand Center, a giant indoor mega-complex packed with loot, danger, and escalating gas. You drop in solo or in trios, scavenge gear, craft equipment, then try to reach an extraction point; if you die, you lose everything you brought and everything you found. Developed and published by Oneway Ticket Studio, it entered Steam Early Access in early 2026, following a highly played Steam Next Fest demo that put it on the radar of extraction-shooter fans.
What The Midnight Walkers Is About
At its core, The Midnight Walkers is a survival “game show” where contestants are forced to fight through a zombie-infested high-rise for the amusement of unseen spectators. Matches take place in Liberty Grand Center, a multi-floor tower in Golden County with themed levels like hospitals, shopping malls, and casinos, each offering different loot pools and combat spaces. Your goal is simple on paper—enter, loot, survive, and escape—but every raid is shaped by randomized gas, enemy spawns, and other players hunting the same high-value rooms.
This focus on a single, huge building gives the game a distinct identity compared to open-field extraction games like Escape from Tarkov, leaning into claustrophobic corridors, chokepoints, and vertical movement through stairs and elevators. The “show” framing, with unseen viewers and hosts like Mr. Nobody cheering for blood, adds a dystopian reality-TV flavor to the chaos.
Core Gameplay and Extraction Loop
The Midnight Walkers follows a classic extraction loop: gear up, deploy, loot, fight, then extract—if you can.
You start in a hideout where you manage loadouts, craft weapons, armor, and consumables, and trade or upgrade gear based on what you’ve brought back from previous runs.
Once you queue as solo or as part of a trio, you spawn somewhere in the Liberty Grand Center with your chosen class and gear.
Inside, you scavenge for guns, melee weapons, armor, materials, and rare items while fighting zombies and other players who are doing the same thing.
To keep tension high, poison gas begins spreading to random floors over time, forcing players upward or downward through the building and pushing everyone into smaller, more contested areas.
Finally, you must reach an extraction point (like a limited escape pod) and survive a vulnerable extraction timer; if you succeed, you keep your loot, if you die, you lose everything you carried in the raid.
This harsh risk–reward design is what makes it feel close to Tarkov and Dark and Darker: high stakes, slow progression, and the constant fear that one mistake wipes an hour of careful looting.
Classes and Playstyles
One of the game’s standout features is its class system, which pushes distinct playstyles instead of generic operators. The main classes (names and details can vary slightly between builds, but the roles are consistent) include:
BRICK – Tanky frontliner with a big hammer and heavy armor, built for close-quarters brawls and soaking damage in tight hallways.
CROW – Agile assassin who uses daggers and fast movement to flank enemies and punish distracted players.
LOCKDOWN / Hunter-type – Ranged specialist who uses a bow and explosives, controlling lines of sight and punishing exposed targets from mid to long range.
BARTENDER / Margarita-type – Support class focused on mixing buffing or healing cocktails, keeping teammates alive and enhancing their combat performance.
Each class has different default gear and abilities, changing how you approach fights, pathing, and risk. For example, a BRICK-led team might hold tight corridors and bully zombies in melee, while a Lockdown-led squad prioritizes long sightlines and ambushes near stairwells.
This class structure gives the game stronger identity than many extraction shooters where players feel mechanically similar apart from loadouts.
Zombies, Other Players, and Environmental Threats
The Midnight Walkers leans into PvPvE: both zombies and players can end your run, and ignoring either is a mistake.
Zombies: Even the weakest undead, called Walkers, are dangerous if they swarm you in tight spaces, while faster mutated types like Runners can chase and overwhelm careless players.
Other Survivors: Other players are usually the biggest threat; they will camp key loot floors, ambush near elevators, and third-party ongoing fights to steal loot and extraction slots.
Poison Gas: Over time, a mutating virus gas spreads to random floors, turning them into lethal zones and forcing teams to move through chokepoints like stairs and lifts.
This combination creates layered decision-making: do you clear zombies to stay quiet and safe, or sprint past them to beat other teams to the hospital floor’s medical loot? Do you risk staying on a rich loot floor a bit longer, knowing gas might hit it next, trapping you between the environment and camping players?
Hideout, Crafting, and Progression
Outside of raids, The Midnight Walkers features a hideout where you manage long-term progression.
Crafting: Use materials from raids to craft weapons, armor, consumables, and utility items, making later runs more manageable if you can afford the risk of bringing valuable gear.
Trading: Sell surplus loot and buy specialized equipment that might be rare or risky to farm in live raids.
Gear Score and Systems: New systems like an equipment score assign values to gear pieces, making it easier to compare builds and optimize your loadout before raids.
There are also small systems like a smoking feature that lets you restore health in exchange for being rooted in place—mechanics that fit the game’s risk–reward philosophy. This meta layer is important: without a satisfying progression system, extraction games lose their hook quickly, so the hideout, crafting, and gear economy are crucial to long-term engagement.
What Makes The Midnight Walkers Unique?
Several design choices help The Midnight Walkers stand out in a crowded extraction genre:
Single Mega-Complex Setting – Instead of sprawling outdoor maps, the entire experience is focused on the Liberty Grand Center tower, giving combat a tight, vertical, and highly readable structure.
Vertical PvPvE Pressure – The poison gas spreading across random floors forces constant decision-making about which level to occupy, creating organic conflicts as teams converge on “safe” floors.
Class-Driven Combat – Defined roles like tank, assassin, sniper, and support give squads a more traditional co-op structure and open up varied tactics.
Showmanship Theme – The idea that your suffering is entertainment for an in-world audience gives the game a grim, Hunger Games–style identity rather than a purely military sim feel.
Melee-Heavy Combat Emphasis – Many playtests highlight the strength and importance of melee combat in cramped interiors, adding a different pacing than purely gun-driven extraction shooters.
For a content creator, that mix of vertical tension, melee chaos, and class synergies is very clip-friendly and easy to explain in thumbnails and titles like “8-Player Tower Extraction With No Escape.”
Early Access State and Community Response
As of its Early Access launch window in early 2026, The Midnight Walkers is positioned as a work-in-progress with a clear roadmap. The developers have stated they plan to remain in Early Access until around mid-2026, adjusting timing based on player feedback and balancing needs.
Playtests and Steam Next Fest demos placed it among the most played demos, suggesting strong initial interest. Content creators and early players often describe it as a “Tarkov meets Dark and Darker in a tower” experience, praising:
The indoor map design and vertical tension.
The feeling of risk when you’re loaded with loot and racing gas and other players to an elevator.
The class system giving squads defined roles.
Common concerns focus on:
The learning curve and punishing deaths, which can frustrate casual players.
The need for continued balance patches and content updates (more floors, more weapon variety, better matchmaking) during Early Access.
Because it is an Early Access game, some rough edges, bugs, and balance issues are expected, but the core loop is already drawing a dedicated audience.
Is The Midnight Walkers Worth Buying?
Whether The Midnight Walkers is worth buying depends heavily on what you enjoy:
It’s likely worth it if:
You enjoy hardcore extraction shooters where losing your gear actually hurts and makes the next raid more tense.
You like PvPvE design with both AI enemies and real players creating unpredictable high-stress scenarios.
You’re into class-based co-op—running trios with defined roles and planning floors to hit (e.g., “We’re low on meds, let’s push the hospital floor”).
You don’t mind Early Access and are okay with systems and balance changing as the devs update the game.
You might want to wait if:
You prefer story-driven or narrative-heavy experiences; The Midnight Walkers focuses on systems and tension, not deep plot.
You dislike losing progress and gear on death; here, extraction failure is intentionally punishing.
You want fully polished, content-complete experiences right away rather than evolving live-service–style games.
If you’re unsure, a good strategy is to:
Watch a few full-raid gameplay videos or playtest VODs to see if the pacing and melee-heavy combat click with you.
Buy in Early Access only if you accept some jank and want to ride the progression and meta from the start, rather than waiting for mid-2026 balance and content updates.
Final Thoughts
The Midnight Walkers is a hardcore, tower-bound extraction FPS that leans into claustrophobic indoor combat, brutal risk–reward, and class-based teamwork to stand out in the 2026 extraction landscape. If high tension, sweaty extractions, and the constant fear of losing everything excite you more than they frustrate you, it’s very likely worth the price of entry in Early Access.
